Reading Break

Some Things I did during my reading break:

Walked down to the beach

Walked along the beach to a waterfall

Drank a handful of waterfall water

Noted waterfall water’s melted-ice taste

Thought about how the waterfall sound

would make a nice ambient audio texture

In Addition,

Read POETIC TERMS (A QUICK LIST

including both things I know by heart and things I will never remember)

Read some stupid poems by a guy named Carmine Starnino

Wished I knew This Way Out of Reading Poetry You Don’t Like For Class

Futhermore,

Tried to write a poem about the geode on my desk

Tried to write a poem about a burnt-down candle on my desk

Gave up writing poems about the things on my desk and tried to write a simple poem about the way waves bend light and make the seabottom look likes it’s folding up in tandem with the water's surface but realized no one reading my poem would have noticed this or know wtf I was talking about and gave up

Tried to write a Resume for a work/study job

Rode a bike built for someone half my size to the corner store (in the rain)

Rode a bike built for someone half my size back from the corner store (in the rain)

In Conclusion,

Wrote some homework about why Balzac’s Un Episode Sous La Terreur is still relevant after 180 years—see above

We're back

We had a little problem with Saving Papier. We decided that the tradition of publishing on paper was just too essential and that blogging poems was a waste of time. No, the real problem was that we wanted to post our own poems but discovered said poems would no longer be eligible for contests or submissions, having already been 'published online.' So I went and interned at this magazine called Explosion-Proof for a while, which was fun while it lasted, though our attention was torn in every direction by constant flights to the west and east at the beckoning of the Eevil Fashion Industry.

So, at long last, hello again.

-K

William Stafford

Travelling Through the Dark


Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason--
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all--my only swerving--,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.

Kenneth Goldsmith

Flarf is Dionysus. Conceptual Writing is Apollo.

An introduction to the 21st Century's most controversial poetry movements by Kenneth Goldsmith

Start making sense. Disjunction is dead. The fragment, which ruled poetry for the past one hundred years, has left the building. Subjectivity, emotion, the body, and desire, as expressed in whole units of plain English with normative syntax, has returned. But not in ways you would imagine. This new poetry wears its sincerity on its sleeve . . . yet no one means a word of it. Come to think of it, no one’s really written a word of it. It’s been grabbed, cut, pasted, processed, machined, honed, flattened, repurposed, regurgitated, and reframed from the great mass of free-floating language out there just begging to be turned into poetry. Why atomize, shatter, and splay language into nonsensical shards when you can hoard, store, mold, squeeze, shovel, soil, scrub, package, and cram the stuff into towers of words and castles of language with a stroke of the keyboard? And what fun to wreck it: knock it down, hit delete, and start all over again. There’s a sense of gluttony, of joy, and of fun. Like kids at a touch table, we’re delighted to feel language again, to roll in it, to get our hands dirty. With so much available language, does anyone really need to write more? Instead, let’s just process what exists. Language as matter; language as material. How much did you say that paragraph weighed?

Our immersive digital environment demands new responses from writers. What does it mean to be a poet in the Internet age? These two movements, Flarf and Conceptual Writing, each formed over the past five years, are direct investigations to that end. And as different as they are, they have surprisingly come up with a set of similar solutions. Identity, for one, is up for grabs. Why use your own words when you can express yourself just as well by using someone else’s? And if your identity is not your own, then sincerity must be tossed out as well. Materiality, too, comes to the fore: the quantity of words seems to have more bearing on a poem than what they mean. Disposability, fluidity, and recycling: there’s a sense that these words aren’t meant for forever. Today they’re glued to a page but tomorrow they could re-emerge as a Facebook meme. Fusing the avant-garde impulses of the last century with the technologies of the present, these strategies propose an expanded field for twenty-first-century poetry. This new writing is not bound exclusively between pages of a book; it continually morphs from printed page to web page, from gallery space to science lab, from social spaces of poetry readings to social spaces of blogs. It is a poetics of flux, celebrating instability and uncertainty.

Yet for as much as the two movements have in common, they are very different. Unlike Conceptual Writing, where procedure may have as much to do with meaning as the form and content, Flarf is quasi-procedural and improvisatory. Many of the poems are “sculpted” from the results of Internet searches, often using words and phrases that the poet has gleaned from poems posted by other poets to the Flarflist e-mail listserv. By contrast Conceptual Writers try to emulate the workings and processes of the machine, feeling that the results will be good if the concept and execution of the poetic machine are good; there is no tolerance for improvisation or spontaneity.

Flarf plays Dionysus to Conceptual Writing’s Apollo. Flarf uses traditional poetic tropes (“taste” and “subjectivity”) and forms (stanza and verse) to turn these conventions inside out. Conceptual Writing rarely “looks” like poetry and uses its own subjectivity to construct a linguistic machine that words may be poured into; it cares little for the outcome. Flarf is hilarious. Conceptual Writing is dry. Flarf is the Land O’Lakes butter squaw; Conceptual Writing is the government’s nutritional label on the box. Flarf is Larry Rivers. Conceptual Writing is Andy Warhol. No matter. They’re two sides of the same coin. Choose your poison and embrace your guilty pleasure.—KG

This essay originally appeared in the July/August 2009 issue of Poetry.

Jeffery McDaniel

The Quiet World

In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond,
I know she's used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

AGE

It creeps up in the morning.

Your bones are weak, riddled with catacombs, empty ivory ballrooms.

Joints creaky with arthritis, attempting to climb the worn stairs.

Knees protesting, your legs shake violently.

Falls are more dangerous, injury more severe.

It will only get worse.

a Paite spell

the little red ant
descended the hill
with one arrow only

Asphalt Instant

Word after word spilling churning exploding through parked cars running falling laughing at nothing never knowing the certainty of normal spitting pompous people slipping around like oil dazed and confused and utterly boring there is no hope for them they reflect in puddles perfect little images never changing or flowing like the rainbows of toxins created by cars and chemicals leaked into the street creating artificial and meaningless uncontainable beauty.

Pink and white jets a hail of blossoms twirl in the rising wind, the storm, disregarding of elemental beauty plucks the petals into the air thunder clouds billow, thickening menacing the lone flower tree cyclones of colour contrast the grey and at the mercy of the perfect storm

here comes the rain.

When finally lamps go out, threads of light outside the window panes Lucid beauty in dreams of smoke there is only sleep, adventures speeding swerving little hands and coffee spliffs convey my days have gone amiss though this is what the hour does to those who leave the minute's touch and those who sacrifice the second's rush to live forever in the instant

Langston Hughes

Theme for English B

The instructor said,

Go home and write

a page tonight.

And let that page come out of you--

Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it's that simple?

I am twenty-two, colored, born in WinstonSalem.

I went to school there, then Durham, then here

to this college on the hill above Harlem.

I am the only colored student in my class.

The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem

through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,

Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,

the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator

up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It's not easy to know what is true for you or me

at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what

I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:

hear you, hear me--we two--you, me, talk on

this page.

(I hear New York too.) Me--who?

Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.

I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.

I like a pipe for a Christmas present,

or records--Bessie, bop, or Bach.

I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like

the same things other folks like who are other races.

So will my page be colored that I write?

Being me, it will not be white.

But it will be a part of you, instructor.

You are white--

yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.

That's American.

Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.

Nor do I often want to be a part of you.

But we are, that's true!

As I learn from you, I guess you learn from me--

although you're older--and white--

and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

Robert Hayden

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

Tatum Howie

bedroom light
left on
till morning

Pablo Neruda

The Dead Woman

If suddenly you do not exist,

if suddenly you are not living,

I shall go on living.

I do not dare,

I do not dare to write it,

if you die.

I shall go on living.

Because where a man has no voice,

there, my voice.

Where blacks are beaten,

I can not be dead.

When my brothers go to jail

I shall go with them.

When victory,

not my victory

but the great victory

arrives,

even though I am mute I must speak:

I shall see it come even though I am blind.

No, forgive me.

If you are not living,

if you, beloved, my love,

if you

have died,

all the leaves will fall on my breast,

it will rain upon my soul night and day,

the snow will burn my heart,

I shall walk with cold and fire and death and snow,

my feet will want to march toward where you sleep,

but

I shall go on living,

because you wanted me to be, above all things,

untamable,

and, love, because you know that I am not just one man

but all men.

Si de pronto no existes,

si de pronto no vives,
yo seguiré viviendo.

No me atrevo,
no me atrevo a escribirlo,
si te mueres.

Yo seguiré viviendo.

Porque donde no tiene voz un hombre
allí, mi voz.

Donde los negros sean apaleados,
yo no puedo estar muerto.
Cuando entren en la cárcel mis hermanos
entraré yo con ellos.

Cuando la victoria,
no mi victoria,
sino la gran Victoria llegue,
aunque esté mudo debo hablar:
yo la veré llegar aunque esté ciego.

No, perdóname.
Si tú no vives,
si tú, querida, amor mío, si tú
te has muerto,
todas las hojas caerán en mi pecho,
lloverá sobre mi alma noche y día,
la nieve quemará mi corazón,
andaré con frío y fuego
y muerte y nieve,
mis pies querrán marchar hacia donde tú duermes, pero seguiré vivo,
porque tú me quisiste sobre
todas las cosas indomable,
y, amor, porque tú sabes que soy no sólo un hombre
sino todos los hombres.

photo source unknown

anais nin

image source unknown

Patti Smith/Nick Tosches

excerpted from a way-old interview with Patti Smith by Nick Tosches...

"Vowels are the most illuminated letters in the alphabet.

Vowels are the colors and souls of poetry and speech...
...I don't like answering to other people's philosophies. I don't have any philosophy, I just believe in stuff. Either I believe in something or I don't. Like, I believe in the Rolling Stones but not in the Dave Clark Five. There's nothing philosophic about it. Whenever I'm linked with a movement, it pisses me off. I like who I am. I always liked who I was and I always loved men. The only time I ever feel fucked around by men is when I fight with a guy or when a guy ditches me. And that's got nothing to do with women's lib. That has to do with being ditched.

I don't feel exploited by pictures of naked broads. I like that stuff. It's a bad photograph or the girl's ugly, then that pisses me off. Shit, I think bodies are great.

Every time I say the word pussy at a poetry reading, some idiot broad rises and has a fit. "What's your definition of pussy, sister?" I dunno, it's a slang term. If I wanna say pussy, I'll say pussy. If I wanna say nigger, I'll say nigger. If somebody wants to call me a cracker bitch, that's cool. It's all part of being American. But all these tight-assed movements are fucking up our slang, and that eats it."

photo source unknown

in from the cold

this, and my morning meal, inspired by my classmate Alice's poem about persimmons

as I step out of the bath,

a maiden drapes me in warm,

soft spiderwebs

thick with dust.

k.l.

Henry Taylor

I suppose I should begin with my favorite...

Barbed Wire

One summer afternoon when nothing much
was happening, they were standing around
a tractor beside the barn while a horse
in the field poked his head between two strands
of the barbed-wire fence to get at the grass
along the lane, when it happened—something

they passed around the wood stove late at night
for years, but never could explain—someone
may have dropped a wrench into the toolbox
or made a sudden move, or merely thought
what might happen if the horse got scared, and
then he did get scared, jumped sideways and ran

down the fence line, leaving chunks of his throat
skin and hair on every barb for ten feet
before he pulled free and ran a short way
into the field, stopped and planted his hoofs
wide apart like a sawhorse, hung his head
down as if to watch his blood running out,

almost as if he were about to speak
to them, who almost thought he could regret
that he no longer had the strength to stand,
then shuddered to his knees, fell on his side,
and gave up breathing while the dripping wire
hummed like a bowstring in the splintered air.

Jimmy Santiago Baca

I copied this excerpt from an insanity-themed poetry anthology I came across at the UWO (university of western ontario) library

from the poem This Dark Side

...

All that I've despised and spat at in disgust

I've become at certain moments in life,

but I continue to praise the spirit,

refuse to embrace the utter horror

of self-destructive impulses

...

Adrian Henri

Love Is...

Love is feeling cold in the back of vans

Love is a fanclub with only two fans

Love is walking holding paintstained hands

Love is

Love is fish and chips on winter nights

Love is blankets full of strange delights

Love is when you don't put out the light

Love is

Love is the presents in Christmas shops

Love is when you're feeling Top of the Pops

Love is what happens when the music stops

Love is

Love is white panties lying all forlorn

Love is a pink nightdress still slightly warm

Love is when you have to leave at dawn

Love is

Love is you and love is me

Love is a prison and love is free

Love's what's there when you're away from me

Love is...

A.S.J. Tessimond

to each a paradise of sorts

You are in love with a country

Where people laugh in the sun

And the people are warm as the sunshine and live and move easily

And women with honey coloured skins and men with no frowns on their faces

Sit on white terraces drinking red wine

While the sea spreads peacock feathers on cinnamon sands

And palms weave sunlight into sheaves of gold

And at night the shadows are indigo velvet

And there is dancing to soft, soft, soft guitars

Played by copper fingers under a froth of stars.

Perhaps your country is where you think you will find it.

Or perhaps it has not yet come or perhaps it has gone.

Perhaps it is east of the sun and west of the moon.

Perhaps it is a country called the Hesperides

And Avalon and Atlantis and Eldorado:

A country which Gauguin looked for in Tahiti and Lawrence in Mexico,

And whether they found it only they can say, and they not now.

Perhaps you will find it where you alone can see it,

But if you can see it, though no one else can, it will be there,

It will be yours.

Ibaragi Noriko

When I Was Prettiest in My Life

When I was prettiest in my life,

the cities crumbled down,

and the blue sky appeared

in the most unexpected places.

When I was prettiest in my life,

a lot of people around me were killed,

in factories, in the sea, and on nameless islands.

I lost the chance to dress up like a girl should.

When I was prettiest in my life,

no men offered me thoughtful gifts.

They only knew how to salute in the military fashion.

They all went off to the front, leaving their beautiful eyes behind.

When I was prettiest in my life,

my head was empty,

my heart was obstinate,

and only my limbs had the bright color of chestnuts.

When I was prettiest in my life,

my country lost in a war.

"How can it be true?" I asked,

striding, with my sleeves rolled up, through the prideless town.

When I was prettiest in my life,

jazz music streamed from the radio.

Feeling dizzy, as if I'd broken a resolve to quit smoking,

I devoured the sweet music of a foreign land.

When I was prettiest in my life,

I was most unhappy,

I was most absurd,

I was helplessly lonely.

Therefore I decided to live a long time, if I could,

like old Rouault of France,

who painted magnificent pictures in his old age.

Anna Akhamatova

Instead of a Preface

In the terrible years of the Yezhov terror I spent seventeen months waiting in line outside the prison in Leningrad. One day somebody in the crowd identified me. Standing behind me was a woman, with lips blue from the cold, who had, of course, never heard me called by my name before. Now she started out of the torpor common to us all and asked me in a whisper (everyone whispered there):

"Can you describe this?"

And I said: "I can."

Then something like a smile passed fleetingly over what had once been her face.

a rich consensus

from the rooftop of a building on manhattan's west side

now I know we've all agreed

that money can't buy happiness

corrosive as greed is-

but on the rooftops we were singing--

on the rooftops we were playing--

on the rooftops we were free!

so though we've all agreed

that money can't buy happiness,

and corrosive as greed may be,

rooftops don't come free.

and though money can't buy happiness

it can buy a rooftop,

and that's good enough for me.

k.l.

long distance

You think that I don't even mean

A single word I say

It's only words, and words are all I have, to take

Your heart away

-Bee Gees, 'Words' lyrics

words

are always easiest to manipulate

and I hate

that it can't be

these arms, and

these legs

that reach out

to teach you

how I love you

k.l.